Abuser 'not moved to avoid police'

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The former head of the Catholic Salesian Order in Australia, Father John M. Murphy, yesterday denied a priest convicted of child abuse had been moved to Samoa to escape Victoria Police who were pursuing him on further child abuse charges.

Father Murphy, who now heads the Order in Samoa, said he had made the decision to send the priest, Frank Klep, to Samoa only when he thought Victorian police were no longer interested in him.

"It was not an attempt to hide him," said Father Murphy who headed the Salesians in Australia and the Pacific from 1994 to 1998.

He also accepted responsibility for signing, in good faith, a declaration that Klep was of good character and had not been convicted of any criminal charges, even though this was not the case. This enabled Klep to get a visa to live in Samoa.

Father Murphy confirmed that another alleged abuser, a Salesian priest from Victoria, Jack Ayers, who had had triple bypass heart surgery, was now seriously ill in Samoa. One Salesian source said he was dying.

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Samoan authorities are investigating whether to deport Father Murphy and Father Ayers. But Father Murphy said the illness of Father Ayers might delay that process.

He said he did not expect any action to be taken against him for signing the declaration in favour of Klep.

He said he could not remember reading the document, but certainly signed it. "I am not trying to get out of that," said Father Murphy.

The Salesians have been widely condemned after reports they were part of a Catholic Church "rat line" to hide priests who abused children, moving them overseas.

The head of the Salesian Order in Australia and the Pacific, Father Ian Murdoch, has been nominated as the only person to comment, but has failed to respond to telephone calls since Samoa expelled Klep.

Klep, 61, was convicted in 1994 on four counts of sexually assaulting students at the Salesian's Rupertswood College in Sunbury and served nine months of community service.

He was arrested in Melbourne last week and remanded in custody by the Melbourne Magistrates Court, charged with a further five counts of indecent assault against a boy in 1973 while teaching at the college.

Police interviewed Klep about the allegations in June 1996. Charges were not laid until May 1998, after he went overseas.

Father Murphy said yesterday that the Order wanted to move Klep to where he would have no contact with children.

He said Victoria Police had said that if Klep heard nothing within six months about the further charges, the Order and Klep could consider the matter over.

Father Murphy said they waited possibly as long as 12 months before sending Klep to Samoa but did not check further with police to see where the matter stood. "We left it up to them," he said.

"We brought him back (to Australia) every two years. He came back four times in six years and made no secret of it," said Father Murphy. He said Klep had done very good work in Samoa.